I am supposed to be doing an update on my Happiness Project for Abundance Cubed, but I have not been feeling very happy lately. I haven’t slept well, eaten healthy, or taken any time off to relax. Farming can be stressful, especially during the height of the summer season. It is also a job that you are constantly planning 12 months into the future. It is difficult to just change strides when crops are in the ground and you already have commitments to meet.

So today I had a good cry. You may be familiar with it, the sob from the soul. My coach Noam talked about getting angry and feeling a release. For me sobbing from the soul can be purifying. It doesn’t make me happier, but it makes me more peaceful. It allows me to release my anxiety and stress and start to externalize it instead of internalizing it. I was told I cry too much when I was a kid. I do cry when I’m happy, sad, and angry. I cry at sappy commercials. I was also told by a manager that I worked with that crying is normal. She said that I shouldn’t be embarrassed or upset that I show that side of myself. She said others shout, cuss, get silent, storm out, etc. These emotions are just normal and each person has their own way to deal with their emotions, so I should value my crying.

When my son was little I had a doctor tell me that I needed to learn how to cry in front of my son. He said I was giving the impression that I never get upset or sad and therefore my son felt like he was doing something wrong when he cried. It was hard for me to share my crying, but it helped him understand it was normal when I did and when he did.​Yet, I do choose to sob alone. The uncontrollable, intense emotions are something I prefer to keep to myself. There have been moments when I have shared it with my husband and family – especially when it was shared grief or pain. But when it is an issue I am personally struggling with, I need to sob by myself because then I can be 100% sincere in my feelings and not worry about how someone else needs to react to my release. It also opens my chest up afterwards and I finally feel like I can breathe deeply again. I don’t even know how tightly I am wound until that release.